Paul Theroux Short Fiction Collections : The Stranger At The Palazzo D'Oro and Other Stories

The story of a love affair between a young man and an older woman in Taormina, Sicily, in the sixties.' This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it' He, the narrator, is a twenty-one-year-old American art student travelling the world. She is a countess - apparently cold, haughty and inaccessible. And with her is the doctor Haroun, her gay travelling companion. When he makes their acquaintance at the Palazzo D'Oro, the narrator finds himself filled with unexpected lust and playing a part in something he doesn't quite understand. Finally, aged sixty, he returns to Taormina to tell his story and confront the present. Filled with Theroux's typically effortless but devastating depictions of place, The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro is a brilliant portrayal of ageing and decay, and a shocking tale of nostalgia and sensuality in a golden age. Echoing the ambiguities of risk and remembered sexuality, the accompanying tales enlarge upon these themes of age and pursuit - the sexual awakening and rites of passage in an American boyhood, the mirror of a writer in Africa at a moment of crisis, and of a man in Hawaii bewitched by dishevelled nymphs.

"This is my only story. Now that I am sixty I can tell it." He, the narrator, was a twenty-one-year-old art student traveling the world. She was a countess -- apparently cold, haughty, and inaccessible -- traveling with Haroun, her ambiguous companion. When the young man makes their acquaintance at a hotel in Sicily, he finds himself filled with unexpected lust and playing a part in something he doesn't quite understand. Filled with Theroux's typically effortless but devastating descriptions of people and places, The Stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro is a brilliant portrayal of aging and decay, a shocking tale of sensuality in a golden age.
The thrill and risk of pursuit and desire mark the accompanying stories of the sexual awakening and rites of passage of a Boston boyhood, the ruin of a writer in Africa, and the bewitchment of a retiree in Hawaii. This is Paul Theroux at his most allusive and wise, writing with a deep understanding of the frailties of men and boys.

Stories deal with lust, sensuality, and rites of passage as a sixty-year-old man recalls a long ago affair with a countess, a young boy walks in on a woman and her lover, and a retired lawyer in Hawaii fantasizes about his housekeepers The stranger at the Palazzo d'Oro A Judas memoir An African story Disheveled nymphs.